My Name is Elizabeth Bentley: Soviet Courier Turned American Informant I was born in New Milford, Connecticut, in 1908, and nothing about my childhood suggested that I would someday carry secrets for Soviet intelligence. I was educated at Vassar College and later studied languages in Europe and at Columbia University. I was intelligent, ambitious, and searching for something larger than myself. During the Great Depression, capitalism appeared to many Americans to be failing.

The Birth of the CIA and KGB: Building the Cold War’s Secret Armies When World War II ended in 1945, American and Soviet soldiers could look back on a war in which their nations had fought the same enemy. But beneath the celebrations, another struggle was already beginning. The United States and Soviet Union had dramatically different political systems and competing visions for the postwar world. As Soviet influence expanded across Eastern Europe and tensions increased over G

My Name is Nikita Khrushchev: Leader of the Soviet Union I was born in 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, near the borderlands of Russia and Ukraine. I did not come from palaces, universities, or wealthy families. My father was a laborer, and I worked as a shepherd boy before becoming a metalworker and mechanic. I knew what it meant to work with my hands and live among ordinary people. When revolution swept through Russia, I saw the Bolsheviks as men who promised to overturn t

The Soviet Atomic Bomb: America Loses Its Nuclear Monopoly (1949) For four years after World War II, the United States possessed something no other nation on Earth was known to have: the atomic bomb. American leaders understood that the Soviet Union was trying to build one, but many believed it would take years before the Soviets succeeded. Then, on August 29, 1949, deep within Soviet-controlled Kazakhstan, a brilliant flash erupted over the Semipalatinsk Test Site. The Sovie

My Name is Syngman Rhee: President of South Korea I was born in 1875 in a Korea very different from the nation the world knows today. The Joseon Dynasty still ruled, but Korea was increasingly surrounded by powerful nations seeking influence over our land. China, Japan, and Russia competed around us while many Koreans debated how our country could survive. As a young man, I became convinced that Korea needed political reform, education, national strength, and independence. I

A Divided Korea: North and South After World War IIWhen World War II ended in August 1945, Koreans had reason to celebrate. For thirty-five years, Korea had been ruled as a colony of the Japanese Empire, and Japan's defeat finally promised liberation. Yet freedom arrived with an unexpected problem. Before Koreans could establish a unified independent government, the peninsula became caught between the two emerging superpowers of the postwar world: the United States and the So

My Name is Chiang Kai-shek: I Lost China, but I Did Not Surrender I was born in 1887 in Zhejiang Province, when China was still ruled by the Qing Dynasty but was being weakened by foreign powers, rebellion, and corruption. My father died when I was young, and my mother raised me with discipline and determination. I grew convinced that China could not survive unless it became strong, united, and capable of defending itself. I chose the military life because I believed soldiers

China After World War II: A Nation Divided In August 1945, people across China could finally celebrate the defeat of Imperial Japan after years of invasion, occupation, destruction, and death. Yet peace did not bring unity. Beneath the celebrations stood two powerful Chinese movements that had temporarily cooperated against Japan but remained bitter rivals: the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist movement led by Mao Zedong. With their common en

My Name is Lucius D. Clay: The General Who Would Not Abandon Berlin I was born in Marietta, Georgia, in 1898, the son of a United States senator. I entered West Point and graduated in 1918, but my career would not be defined by battlefield glory. I became an engineer, and I learned early that wars and nations are won not only with rifles, but with roads, supplies, factories, transportation, and organization. An officer must understand how things work, how people work together

Berlin After World War II: One City Divided Among Four Powers Berlin was a shattered capital at the center of a defeated nation. Years of Allied bombing and the final Battle of Berlin had damaged or destroyed enormous sections of the city, while hundreds of thousands of residents faced shortages of food, fuel, housing, and basic necessities. Nazi Germany surrendered in May, but peace did not mean that Berlin immediately returned to normal. Instead, the former German capital b